The invention relates to a read apparatus having a rotatable turret magazine with a plurality of disc storage compartments equidistantly spaced along its circumference. A feed-in device conveys a disc from a storage compartment into the disc-drive arrangement and back into a storage compartment, and a scanning device reads the information stored on a disc which is rotated by the disc-drive arrangement. Such an apparatus is known from DE-A20 43 289, which describes a jukebox for playing audio records.
In documentation processing very large information stores are needed. Currently, the most suitable information medium is the optical disc, from which the information can be read optically. In order to obtain large storage units a plurality of such optical discs with their cartridges are placed in suitable compartments of a bulk storage system.
An access mechanism grips a disc to be processed and loads it into a processing device (drive) of known type. In known bulk storage systems of this type the cartridge is also driven. The stored discs are arranged in one plane. This results in expensive constructions and long access times.